Stuart Nethercott

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Stuart Nethercott (born 21 March 1973 in Ilford, Essex) is an English professional football player currently playing for Wivenhoe Town.

Nethercott grew up through the ranks at Tottenham Hotspur and made his debut on 20 March 1993 in a 1-1 draw at Chelsea.

He was sent on loan to Maidstone and Barnet for experience during the early 1990s and ultimately played 54 games for Spurs, playing in the side which reached the FA Cup semi-finals in 1995.

For a while it looked as though Nethercott would be the long-term successor to the ageing Gary Mabbutt, but this did not happen as he had limited ability and by 1998 he had fallen out of favour in the first team and was transferred to Millwall. He helped them win the Division Two title in 2001 and reach their first-ever FA Cup final in 2004.

After the FA Cup final defeat, he signed for Wycombe Wanderers, and later dropped into non-league football with Woking, Heybridge Swifts and Wivenhoe Town. He took a player/assistant manager role at Welling United in 2007, but when his managerial colleague Neil Smith was sacked, returned to Wivenhoe for a second spell.

Stuart Nethercott is perhaps best remembered for the disproportionate amount of times he featured in the Merlin F.A. Premier League Sticker Book collection for the 1994-95 season. Much to the chagrin of collectors, it was not unknown for a six sticker packet to contain six copies of Nethercott, then in the Tottenham ranks. Nethercott's sticker became ubiquitous to the point that, in an attempt to rid themselves of a rapidly thickening deck of Nethercotts, school children of the period were known to cover their friends' lockers as well as their school corridor walls with numerous copies of the Nethercott sticker, earning Stuart Nethercott a degree of fame and notoriety he was unable to attain in his footballing career.